We didn’t say APC has Islamic agenda -PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party has denied linking the All Progressives Congress to any Islamic agenda.

The ruling party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in Abuja on Monday, was reacting to a statement credited to a former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in which he asked the ruling party to stop linking the opposition party with Islamic agenda.

Apart from this, Atiku, who was one of the founding fathers of the PDP but now a chief of the APC, said the ruling party was using the tactics to divert attention of Nigerians from the Federal Government ineptitude and apathetic posture to corruption and insecurity.

Apart from this, he also said no responsible government should seek to create division, suspicion and animosity among its citizens by linking the opposition leaders with terrorist activities or accusing them of harbouring extremists.

Metuh, in his reply, said though the party would not want to take on the former Vice President, and warned that he (Atiku) should not allow his media team to destroy him, said there was the need to put the record straight.

While acknowledging that Atiku was among the founding fathers of the ruling party, Metuh said the former Vice President should “caution his media managers to desist from associating him with propaganda, political mudslinging and character assassination that the APC has become notorious for.”

He said it was wrong for anyone to say the PDP had accused the APC of having an Islamic agenda, saying its past reference on the issue was as a result of an allegation made by an individual against the opposition party.

Metuh said, “On the issue of APC having an Islamic agenda, it is known to all and sundry that the the PDP never labelled it as such. We merely, in our statement of January 7, 2014, drew the attention of Nigerians to the revelation by an Islamic cleric, Ambassador Yusuf Garba and the Religious Equity Promotion Council that the APC was seeking to impose on Nigeria, an agenda akin to that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

“In any case, we insist that it is completely out of place for anybody to associate APC with Islam which is a religion of peace and does not preach violence, greed, destruction and lust for power which are the trademarks of the APC.

“We restate that some of these APC leaders, by their utterances and conducts, are not good Muslims. Besides, we cannot associate a party, made up of anarchists bound together by the lust for power and desperation to rule by any means including promoting violence and division in Nigeria, with Islam.”